About smoke

[Lützow]

Can anyone explain me the correct usage of smoke ?

Afaik smoke is crucial for covering my own troops from enemy sight. However, if opposing forces shoot smoke in my hexes, they're able to pinpoint my tanks after.

I don't get how smoke could give me an advantage while on same time serves the enemy, merely depending on which side fires it.

[m10bob]

The best placement of smoke is in a hex between you and your opponent. If you smoke your own hex, the enemy fire into the hex you are in, (ranging on the smoke itself?).
NOTE:Putting smoke in your own hex also reduces YOUR chance to hit any enemy!
A real bummer inherent with the game is that when you elect to throw smoke in view of the enemy, sometimes the smoke does not fire(dud?), and the enemy gets to take a reaction shot because you did expose yourself, swivel your turret, etc.)
Smoke is a great tool defensively as you can lay a line of smoke maybe 4-5 hexes out, and then let your weaker AT guns hit the opponent at close range as he comes chugging thru it.
I like to put combat engineers on a road and in valleys behind a smokescreen, and then have them planting mines, covered by bazookas and HMG's.
Set a btty of artillery to fire suppression fire directly forward of those mines, once the enemy comes in.
Any enemy infantry on tanks or trucks will just have a bad day.

Beware of smoke, it is always a portent of things to come, if not done by an individual unit.

Note the smokescreen on the far side of the river.

[m10bob]

Here, a Tiger withdraws in it's own smokescreen.(We players wish the SPWAW tanks could like-wise "back up", but you CAN cover yourself with smoke.)

[m10bob]

Infantry and armor escort advancing under cover of smoke from a burning house.
(So long as that house is *really* on fire, the chance of an enemy MG being in it is small.)

[Stvitus2002]

I find that smoke is essential in assault battles. Without a smoke screen, your
engineers will get cut to pieces by the AI's MG's & artillery while trying to clear
a path thru the minefields.

I can't remember ever using smoke in defensive battles.

You probably know already, but the "d" key will fire off vehicle smoke
dischargers. Very handy when getting shot at by hidden AT guns.[8D]




WO 0/0

[chopper66]

I like this game a lot, having kept coming back to it since I bought the original, but I continually get frustrated with the seeing massive amounts of smoke being popped by infantry when they retreat, not to mention the massive amount of infantry smoke that is made available to all units.
 
It seems odd that the infantry smoke part of the game is placed within the game engine itself, instead of being part of each individual OOB. My understand is that the game engine is intended for modern units, but has been adopted for WWII. If this is the case, then I can understand the amount of smoke being generated by infantry but conscript WWII infantry should not be popping smoke 2, 3 or even four times after losing a man and retreating. The battlefield quickly looks like a something out of Napoleonic times with visibility restricted to one hex and tanks dieing like flies to 1 hex distant infantry assaults.
 
Although I expect that nothing will happen to address this clear weakness in the game (such as an option for 'realistic' infantry smoke), I live in hope that one of these years the powers that be will add a feature that will keep the game going for another generation.
 
If it is a question of man-hours and cost, then I'll code it for you (along with signing whatever non-disclosure document you would like to add to the one already signed), and yes I realise that this won't happen - but it did last time I offered to debug a game for a developer.

[KG Erwin]

Jeez louise. I simply don't use smoke in my vs-AI battles. My Marines don't hide behind it. Leave that to the candy-ass grunts of the Army. Smoke-screens are for p*ssies. Gyrenes shield themselves with a wall of firepower. [:D]

[JEB Davis]

ORIGINAL: idwilson66

I like this game a lot, having kept coming back to it since I bought the original, but I continually get frustrated with the seeing massive amounts of smoke being popped by infantry when they retreat, not to mention the massive amount of infantry smoke that is made available to all units.

It seems odd that the infantry smoke part of the game is placed within the game engine itself, instead of being part of each individual OOB. My understand is that the game engine is intended for modern units, but has been adopted for WWII. If this is the case, then I can understand the amount of smoke being generated by infantry but conscript WWII infantry should not be popping smoke 2, 3 or even four times after losing a man and retreating. The battlefield quickly looks like a something out of Napoleonic times with visibility restricted to one hex and tanks dieing like flies to 1 hex distant infantry assaults.

Although I expect that nothing will happen to address this clear weakness in the game (such as an option for 'realistic' infantry smoke), I live in hope that one of these years the powers that be will add a feature that will keep the game going for another generation.

If it is a question of man-hours and cost, then I'll code it for you (along with signing whatever non-disclosure document you would like to add to the one already signed), and yes I realise that this won't happen - but it did last time I offered to debug a game for a developer.

I completely agree, you have my vote!

Matrix!

Why have you let Steel Tigers die????

Doggone it!!!!

[Five_of_Swords]

well... smoke clears slowly over time, but the amount of smoke produced in battle really does have drastic effects in the game. I often am extremely careful about getting the correct LOS so that my feild guns, mmg, and jpz can operate with optimal coordination....and when infantry start running and/or i bombard the area a lot, the smoke issue actually forces me to withdraw from the area because i cant tell if my units are about to get ambushed. Ive actually edited the oob for germans so that i can buy large platoons of FT engineers only to mop up a heavily smoked area. Indeed the silly amount of smoke makes FT engineers very overpowered. (It always makes me chuckle and pretend im using pyros from TF2). You can always move to a new area until the smoke clears, but this approach makes the battle last about 15 extra turns.

I think you notice this more when playing vs the AI than you would vs a human because you gotta give the AI loads of extra battle points to make it interesting and they spend this on swarms of infantry.

[Kuokkanen]

I just got neat idea: when ATG or MG team gets smoked, it means someone is going attack it soon enough. So move it outta way, and if you know what is going attack it, put in something that can effectively counter the attacker.

Usually ATG is attacked by infantry, or in case of light ATG, heavy tank with sufficient front armor to take the shot and live. So when ATG is smoked, move it out, and move in couple SMG squads and maybe MG team or tank (those can also cover move of ATG). When enemy infantry comes: SURPRISE! [:D]